Congress is looking for details on federal telework as part of the latest government spending agreement — echoing months of return-to-office scrutiny from the House Oversight and Accountability committee.

Among its many provisions, the agreement congressional appropriators reached Thursday for the back half of fiscal 2024 government spending bills lays out six new requirements on federal telework and return-to-office for federal employees.

Within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment, the Office of Management and Budget will have to turn over all agencies’ return-to-office “action plans” outlined earlier this year, lawmakers said in an explanatory statement for the 2024 Financial Services and General Government bill.

The action plans, initially required as part of an OMB memo last April, detail agencies’ federal telework and in-office requirements, as well as measurements for workforce factors like productivity and employee engagement.

Now almost a year after OMB’s initial call for agencies to begin returning staff to the office at least 50% of the time, the White House has continued to press agencies who appear to be falling behind on the requirements.

As part of the appropriations package, agencies will also have to provide information on the average number and percentage of employees working in the office during a typical two-week pay period; their most recent policy on federal telework — including any agreements with unions; and how they measure productivity for teleworking employees.

In reaction to the new reporting requirements, the American Federation of Government Employees called on Congress to embrace federal telework and remote work as an important flexibility, which the union said improves morale, productivity, recruitment and retention.

“Language attempting to tie the hands of the administration when it comes to determining the correct balance of in-person and remote work at each of our federal workplaces is particularly frustrating,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

The National Treasury Employees Union, however, approached the provision and upcoming requirements for further information with a more hopeful mindset.

“We support a data-driven, fair analysis of the telework programs now in place for eligible federal employees across government,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “NTEU is confident that Congress will ultimately agree that telework is a benefit to federal employees, their agencies and the taxpayers they serve, and reject arbitrary caps and other measures that inhibit this proven workplace practice.”

Reporting requirements on federal office space

In the spending agreement, lawmakers are also setting requirements for agencies to provide more information to Congress about federal office space. The federal footprint has been steadily declining, but agencies still holding onto excess and underutilized office space is a main reason the Government Accountability Office has kept federal real property management on its High-Risk List for over 20 years.

Agencies that have an office space utilization rate of less than 60% will have to submit to Congress a description of their current efforts to reduce their physical footprint. Agencies will also have to detail the total office space costs, the average utilization rate and the estimated cost of underutilized space, the lawmakers said.

The federal telework and office space reporting requirements come after nearly a year of the Oversight committee calling for more information and better data on telework, remote work and in-office requirements, as well as impacts on productivity and services to the public.

Staff for Oversight committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.

At the same time, the Office of Personnel Management has said telework supports federal recruitment and retention, and offers agencies opportunities for cost savings, according to OPM’s latest telework report to Congress.

The new requirements also aren’t limited to civilian agencies. The Defense Department 2024 spending bill directs GAO to submit a report on telework to the congressional defense committees within 180 days of the bill’s passage, lawmakers said. That report should detail DoD’s adherence to telework and remote work policies, as well as details on the number of DoD employees who telework.

Lawmakers said the report will also have to weigh the cost and efficacy of telework and how it compares with in-person work, especially considering impacts on training and development of employees, and organizational cohesion.

DoD recently updated its telework policy for the first time since 2012, creating a more flexible policy that now addresses both telework and remote work.

As the 2024 spending agreement nears the finish line, the Biden administration is also already looking ahead to funding levels for 2025. Part of the administration’s plans for the coming fiscal year outline further studies on federal telework and the government’s hybrid work posture.

“OPM is conducting and disseminating three research studies on the future of work, assessing the effect of telework, remote work and hybrid work on hiring, engagement and retention, as well as a project to improve accessibility of organizational health and organizational performance data for agency leaders through toolkits and dashboards,” OMB said in a 2025 budget request document.

Bureau of Prisons, other federal pay reforms

At the top line, the Financial Services and General Government bill provides $13.7 billion in appropriations, which is $1.1 billion, or 4%, below enacted 2023 funding levels — and $5.7 billion below the White House’s 2025 budget request.

The package gives OPM about $412 million for salaries and expenses, and another $36 million for OPM’s inspector general office. That’s 12% below the Biden administration’s request of $465.8 million in discretionary spending for OPM in 2025.

The spending agreement also aims to address major staffing challenges at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Congress is calling on OPM to work with BOP and consider possibilities for reforming or modifying the General Schedule to address pay rates for federal correctional officers, who currently have a 40% staffing shortage nationwide.

Lawmakers are also telling OPM to create a direct hire authority for all BOP facilities, and report back to the appropriations committees on the efforts within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment.

Earlier in March, Congress agreed to the overall budget for BOP in its first spending minibus. While staffing levels and salaries for BOP remained the same, the agency’s facilities maintenance budget decreased by 38%, putting the agency $110 million below the 2023 enacted level.

“While we wish more funds were included to address staffing and safety issues across the Bureau of Prisons, we are pleased that Congress directed the administration to research ways to improve pay for correctional officers and staff,” AFGE’s Kelley said.

A couple long-standing provisions for federal pay will also remain intact under the new funding agreement. For one, prevailing rate employees paid through the Federal Wage System will continue to see limits on their pay raises, ensuring they don’t exceed the raises for feds on the General Schedule.

A pay freeze will also remain in effect for the vice president, ambassadors at large, non-career members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and other senior political appointees positioned at or above level IV of the Executive Schedule.

Despite significant cuts for some agencies and federal programs, the White House is urging a quick passage of the appropriations package, according to a statement of Administration Policy from OMB.

The post Congress calls for more details on federal telework in 2024 spending package first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Biden administration is asking Congress for $1.63 trillion for defense and non-defense discretionary accounts in 2025, which is $11 million, or 0.7%, over the enacted levels for 2023. The new spending proposal breaks down to $895 billion for defense spending and $734 billion for non-defense spending, 4.3% above and 3.4% below the enacted 2023 spending levels, respectively.

Given the current climate on Capitol Hill, the 2025 budget request is unlikely to find its way through Congress unscathed. But the White House’s proposal, released Monday, is considered the opening bid for government spending next fiscal year. It’s also a major indicator of what the administration will focus on over the next year.

For federal employees, what may be one of most impactful parts of the President’s budget request is next year’s federal pay raise.

For 2025, the White House is pushing for a more modest 2% federal pay raise for the roughly 1.5 million federal employees on the General Schedule.

If enacted, most civilian federal employees would see the boost to their paychecks starting in the first full pay period of January 2025. Military members would receive a 4.5% raise next year, according to the budget request.

The percentage adjustment would be the smallest pay raise since President Joe Biden took office. Federal employees received raises of 5.2%, 4.6% and 2.7%, in 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. In all three years, Biden’s federal pay raise proposals were finalized without intervention from Congress.

The Biden administration said it opted for the smaller raise proposal for 2025 due to financial constraints agencies are expected to face over the next fiscal year.

At the same time, more long-term fixes to the federal pay system remain a priority for the administration, the Office of Management and Budget said. Now a year after Biden hinted at plans to fix the pay compression Senior Executive Service members, higher-level General Schedule employees, and blue-collar workers on the Federal Wage System experience, the White House pointed to a couple possible options to pursue. Those include increasing Executive Schedule rates, removing pay caps in the Federal Wage System and modifying how pay rates are adjusted each year.

“The administration continues to prioritize federal compensation and also looks forward to working with Congress to address long-standing issues of pay compression, which impact employees at various levels throughout the government,” OMB said in the budget documents. “By continuing to pursue structural improvements and use of flexibilities, we will enhance the competitiveness of the federal pay system.”

The budget request does not detail how the raise would break down between the across-the-board percentage and locality pay adjustments. If tradition stands, the federal pay raise would likely comprise a 1.5% base raise for feds, plus an average of a 0.5% locality pay boost. But the administration will not finalize that breakdown at least until Biden releases an alternative pay plan in August.

The federal pay raise proposal in the budget request is only the first step of the process for finalizing the amount federal employees will see added to their paychecks next year.

Each year, a president will typically submit an alternative pay plan to Congress in August, which incorporates the initial proposal from the budget request. The President will then sign an executive order by the end of the calendar year to make the pay raise official for the following January.

A 2% federal pay raise is also well below what some House and Senate Democrats are calling for next year. The Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act is proposing a 7.4% raise for civilian federal employees in 2025.

“While every pay raise is a step in the right direction after decades of disinvestment in the federal workforce, our legislation remains the best option for ensuring federal employees are fairly and properly compensated for their service,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who introduced the FAIR Act, said in a statement to Federal News Network.

Other workforce priorities in 2025 budget request

Of course, the federal pay raise proposal is far from the only priority for the federal workforce contained in the 2025 budget request. In the proposal, the Biden administration pointed to new goals for improving the federal workforce, as well as its plans to strengthen existing goals.

For one, the budget request calls on agencies to improve the federal hiring process, in part through scaling up the use of shared certificates and pooled hiring. Shared certificates let federal job applicants submit one application, which multiple agencies can then consider for common positions that aren’t specific to one agency. The budget request touted success of the recruitment strategy for hiring 6,100 feds through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Additionally, the budget request maintains a focus on early-career federal hiring, which has been a priority at agencies for several years. Currently, less than 7% of the federal workforce is under age 30.

The new proposal particularly emphasized the importance of expanding access to paid federal internships and promoting early-career job opportunities in government.

Just last week, Biden signed an executive order telling agencies to also make better use of registered apprenticeships as another pathway into federal service. Now the administration is asking Congress for $335 million — an increase of $50 million over the enacted 2023 level — to invest in the Labor Department’s registered apprenticeship program.

“This investment would also be used to increase the number of workers from historically underrepresented groups, including people of color, women and people with disabilities, who participate in registered apprenticeships,” the budget request said.

The administration also emphasized investments in more general recruitment and retention goals, for example, through the Office of Personnel Management’s Hiring Experience Office.

“As the government faces increasingly complex challenges, the need for federal leaders, managers and frontline staff with the right skills in the right jobs has never been greater,” the budget request said.

The White House is also proposing further investments in the “Trusted Workforce 2.0” strategy, which aims to bolster cybersecurity and personnel vetting procedures governmentwide.

Some agencies would also see specific investments for frontline employees working in government. Notably, the budget request pushes for a permanent pay raise for federal wildland firefighters, as well as other workforce reforms for the frontline employees, including more staffing, better health services and improved housing for federal firefighters — totaling $135 million above the 2023 enacted level for the Interior Department, and $387 million over the 2023 enacted level for Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service.

The investments “would help address long-standing recruitment and retention challenges, increase … capacity to complete critical risk mitigation work, and further the administration’s commitment to build a more robust and resilient wildland firefighting workforce as the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfires continue to increase due to climate change,” the budget request said.

The Transportation Security Administration would receive an additional $1.5 billion to continue funding the TSA pay equity initiative. The initiative gave TSA employees a pay raise beginning in July 2023.

“The TSA workforce deserves to be fairly compensated at rates comparable with their peers in the federal workforce,” the budget request said. “TSA has already seen an 11% reduction in attrition, and is making gains in retaining what has historically been a workforce with high turnover.”

The Federal Aviation Administration would get $17.5 billion in its discretionary budget authority, according to the budget request. It’s an increase of $2.1 billion above the 2023 enacted level. The funding would go toward more hiring and training of air traffic controllers, modernization investments and increased safety capabilities, the budget request said.

The budget request is also targeting recruitment for AI jobs in government. The Biden administration is proposing an investment of $32 million for the U.S. Digital Service, General Services Administration and OPM to continue working toward a governmentwide AI talent surge, first launched in October 2023.

Since this year is a presidential election year, the 2025 budget request is the last proposal for the first term of the Biden administration. But with only half of congressional appropriations bills so far determined for 2024, the path to reaching a spending agreement for agencies in 2025 may remain uncertain for months to come.

On March 9, Biden signed a $460 billion package of spending bills just in time to avoid a partial government shutdown. The House and Senate now have a deadline of March 22 to reach a spending agreement for many other agencies — before getting around to considering agency funding and priorities for fiscal 2025.

The post Biden proposes 2% federal pay raise in 2025 budget request first appeared on Federal News Network.

We’re in a new year, and that means federal employees working across the country are about to get a sizeable raise added to their next paychecks.

President Joe Biden made the average 5.2% raise official right before Christmas. But while most career feds on the General Schedule will get a raise somewhere around that percentage, thousands of those in the uppermost ranks of the GS pay system will see their paychecks short-changed.

That’s because of an arbitrary pay cap that exists for General Schedule pay rates. Salaries of career GS employees, according to federal statute, cannot exceed the pay for political appointees and others at level IV on the Executive Schedule.

For a long time, the pay cap impacted only the longest-serving and topmost-ranked GS-15s. But just in the last year or so, pay compression has extended down to some GS-14s as well.

The salaries of these senior-level feds do increase with annual federal pay raises, but the pay ceiling means they don’t reach their “full” raises — and that has impacts lasting well into retirement too (more on that later).

For 2024, any GS grade or step that would be put above $191,900 due to the pay raise will see their pay compressed down to that amount.

The grades and steps that pay compression affects also vary nationwide. Depending on the locality pay area, exactly whose pay gets compressed looks a little different.

Using Office of Personnel Management data, Federal News Network compiled the chart below showing exactly which steps and grades are impacted in each of the locality pay areas that experience pay compression.

(Story continues below)

With the latest 5.2% raise, pay compression now applies to the majority of locality pay areas, affecting 35 of the 58 total areas to some extent. That means in 60% of the existing locality pay areas, at least one step of at least one pay grade is hitting the arbitrary pay ceiling.

By comparison, there were 25 locality pay areas in the pay cap club in 2020 — the last time Federal News Network conducted a locality-by-locality analysis.

Over time, after years of pay raises for most GS employees, coupled with no or reduced raises for others, the problem of pay compression is getting worse.

In 2024, GS-15, step 10, employees in Albany, New York, and Austin, Texas, will begin experiencing pay compression for the first time.

Adding to the troubles, the pool of federal employees whose pay has been capped expanded within six different locality pay areas this year.

Pay compression is noticeably worse in one region in particular: the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, California, locality pay area. It’s the only area where the pay ceiling is low enough for GS-14s to hit it, now reaching steps 9 and 10 on that pay band.

The next step down in the Bay Area — GS-14, step 8 — is just a couple thousand dollars below the $191,900 pay ceiling too. For 2024, employees situated there will get a salary of $187,598.

In a couple other geographic regions, some feds are just a few metaphorical inches from the pay ceiling. For example, GS-15, step 7, employees in Denver, Colorado, are just $136 shy of the cap this year.

On the other end of things, some senior-level feds have had their pay compressed for years.

“I consider GS-15, step 10s, like me, to be well-compensated in the grand scheme of things — with that said, it’s more about the principle,” one FNN reader wrote in a recent email to me. “The deal is supposed to be that federal employees get promoted from grade to grade as they show potential and take on greater and greater responsibility, and then, within their grade, receive step increases based on years of experience.”

The pay caps not only limit an employee’s take-home pay during a given year, but could also cost future annuitants during retirement — particularly when calculating their “high-three,” the average of the highest three consecutive years of salaries that help determine federal annuity payments.

The pay cap can make a difference of thousands of dollars in retirement annuities, according to Federal News Network’s analysis from 2020.

“I recognize that the last couple of years, we have received a greater proportion of the raise, but even if the cap was raised to $300,000 next year, we will never be made whole for what we were promised and have already lost,” the anonymous fed said.

The Senior Executives Association — an advocacy group that’s been particularly vocal about pay compression — pointed to ripple effects of the pay challenge as well.

“This issue does not incentivize federal employees to pursue senior executive positions in the government and contributes to morale challenges, as evidenced by the recent Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey results indicating just 57% of federal employees are satisfied with their pay — down 10% from 2020,” SEA President Marcus Hill said in a Dec. 27 statement. “Despite a bipartisan recognition of this problem, pay compression remains a real issue.”

OPM declined to provide Federal News Network with data on how many federal employees experience pay compression nationwide, but by some estimates, about 30,000 GS employees and 2,500 Senior Executive Service, Senior-Level, and Scientific and Professional employees are affected by pay compression, said Jason Briefel, partner and director of government and public affairs at Shaw Bransford & Roth.

“The joy many federal employees felt will quickly turn to frustration when tens of thousands of feds realize they will not receive this raise because their pay is capped,” Briefel wrote in an email. “This serves as a major disincentive to promote and advance within the government and causes many excellent federal employees to leave for other sectors each year, often to government contractors where they can earn double or more the salary while still working on the same mission.”

In the fiscal 2024 budget request, the Biden administration hinted at plans to issue a legislative proposal aiming to address the worsening challenge of pay compression. But so far, no proposal has been made publicly available.

“We are continuing to work through those issues, through our channels in the government,” OPM Deputy Director Rob Shriver said in a recent interview. “We hope to have more to be able to tell you about that soon.”

And even after a potential legislative proposal from the Biden administration, it would still be up to Congress to actually make the change.

The post For General Schedule employees, pay compression got a little worse in 2024 first appeared on Federal News Network.

Most recently, federal employees who work temporarily above their pay grade will soon get paid at a higher rate for longer, according to a Dec. 27 proposed rule from OPM.

Generally, agencies can assign employees work that’s technically meant for more senior feds. And in those instances, employees working above their pay grade do get paid more. But currently, there’s a 120-day cap on how long feds can receive a higher pay rate — even if the work extends beyond that four-month period.

Under OPM’s new proposed rule, both bargaining unit and non-bargaining unit workers would be paid at a higher rate for the entire duration that they perform the work of a higher-graded position.

The proposed rule comes after the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) petitioned OPM and called on the agency to address what the union said was “significant unfairness” for employees performing more senior-level work. The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) similarly called on OPM to address the issue in 2022.

More than 20 years ago, federal employees were often given full backpay when told to perform senior-level work, without a cap on how long they could receive the higher pay rate.

But a decision from the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) in 2004 — based on an advisory opinion from OPM at the time — added a 120-day cap for the higher pay rate.

The new proposed rule aims to correct what NTEU said is an error in the interpretation of the regulations.

“OPM believes the proposed modification is a reasonable solution to address those situations where an agency may assign higher-graded duties to an employee without using competitive procedures and where a collective bargaining agreement requires a temporary promotion,” OPM said in its proposed rule.

OPM is accepting public comments until Feb. 26 and will subsequently finalize the rule after reviewing any comments.

But beyond these new regulations, there are plenty of other pay tweaks OPM has made in recent months.

Shifting the onus for approving pay bonuses

In a proposed rule from November, OPM figured out a way to offload some transactional work, while also trying to help agencies speed up the federal recruitment process.

OPM’s proposal specifically focused on the procedures for offering recruitment and relocation pay incentives for federal employees.

Currently, agencies can offer annual pay bonuses equal to 25% of an employee’s base salary for up to four years — without the need to go through OPM. Agencies can also offer larger bonuses, but OPM has to approve the higher rate before an agency can pay it out.

Now, OPM is proposing to transfer the required sign-off for approving the higher pay bonuses instead to individual agencies. After getting a signed waiver, agencies can approve annual bonuses of up to 50% of an employee’s base salary for two years.

The proposed rule, in other words, would increase the size of bonuses that agencies can internally approve for their own employees.

The goal, in part, is to “reduce administrative burden on agencies and increase the efficiency of using recruitment and relocation incentives,” OPM said.

Banning the use of salary history in hiring

Earlier in 2023, OPM proposed another tweak to federal pay, this time to address potential pay inequities that can occur during the hiring process.

An OPM proposal from May aimed to bar agencies from using a federal job candidate’s previous salary history when setting pay as part of an employment offer.

The goal is to address a pay disparity between men, and women and racial minorities, in the federal workforce.

Currently, OPM’s regulations do not require job applicants to share their salary history for an agency to make a hiring decision. But the regulations do let agencies request an applicant’s salary history, and then use that information to help set the applicant’s starting pay rate.

“Relying on a candidate’s previous salary history can exacerbate preexisting inequality and disproportionally impact women and workers of color,” OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said.

Under OPM’s proposal, agencies would not be allowed to consider an applicant’s salary history at all when setting pay for newly appointed federal employees.

While the gender and racial pay gaps in government are smaller than those in the nationwide workforce, OPM’s proposed regulations were a step toward the agency’s goal of completely closing the pay gap in the federal government.

Creating new regions for locality pay

Additionally, some 33,300 federal employees are about to see higher paychecks, due to OPM’s finalization of four new locality pay areas, as well as the inclusion of various new counties to existing localities.

The new localities are:

• Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California
• Reno-Fernley, Nevada
• Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, New York
• Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d’Alene, Washington-Idaho

Previously, federal employees working in these areas were part of the “rest of U.S.” locality pay area. Under the new localities, they’ll receive higher pay raises than the average 5.2% for 2024.

Federal News Network has detailed more of the intricacies and history of locality pay in this story.

A desire for broader reforms remains

Although OPM has pushed forward attempts to fix several areas of the often-complicated federal pay system, larger problems still lie ahead.

For years, the President’s Pay Agent — a three-person panel of government pay leaders — has called for “major legislative reforms” to a pay system that many say has been broken for decades.

Many annual pay agent reports have pointed to flaws in the current locality pay system.

“The current pay comparison methodology used in the locality pay program ignores the fact that non-federal pay in a local labor market varies substantially between different occupational groups,” the pay agent said in its October 2023 report. “As currently applied, locality payments in a local labor market may leave some mission-critical occupations significantly underpaid while overpaying others.”

Other advocates of federal pay reform, such as the Government Managers Coalition (GMC), have called specifically for a fix to pay compression as well. A pay cap affects senior-level feds on the General Schedule and in the Senior Executive Service (SES), since their pay cannot exceed that of Level IV on the Executive Schedule. Pay compression impacts more and more feds each year.

GMC’s leaders warned that pay issues will only worsen until the administration proposes reforms for the federal government’s various pay systems and to address pay compression.

In its budget request from March 2023, the Biden administration hinted at a goal of fixing pay compression. But there is not yet a proposal publicly available from the administration.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Daisy Thornton

A new study suggests languages that developed in warmer climates tend to be louder, and those that developed in colder climates tend to be quieter.

Source: Atlas Obscura

The post 4 ways federal pay has changed in the last year first appeared on Federal News Network.

Just about a year ago, Joe Lewis took the plunge into the Senior Executive Service.

It was a leap of faith in many regards because while taking an SES position is good for your ego, good for your career, in some respects, and good for your agency, it can be hard on you, your family and eventually your checkbook if you get caught in the pay compression challenge.

Lewis, who joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as its chief information security officer in January 2023, said obtaining the SES level always has been a career goal.

“I didn’t do this for ego reasons, but more because I felt like I could improve the quality of the work environment for a greater and larger number of people. As I ascended through different levels of my career, my sphere of influence grew, and my ability to improve relations for larger groups of people grew as well,” Lewis said in an interview with Federal News Network. “By virtue of that, the Senior Executive Service was always an ultimate goal. I believe that being a member of the Senior Executive Service gives you, probably, the greatest ability to affect the largest number of people in a positive way. It was a very early career aspiration of mine, and one I’m really proud to have achieved.”

Lewis’ decision is one many senior federal executive leaders are weighing. Many employees at the GS-14 and 15 levels are wondering if the move into the SES is worth it. Does the pain of management outweigh the gain of reaching the pinnacle of your career?

The decision for many GS-14/15s may be coming sooner than they thought as the number of SESers leaving federal service reached a four-year high in 2022. The Partnership for Public Service found in new data released in July 903 members of the SES left in 2022, which was second only to the 906 who left in 2018 and the second highest since 2005. Add to that, the fact that 38.6% of all SESers are 55 years old or older, more turnover in the SES is coming.

Federal News Network executive editor Jason Miller talked with Lewis about his year in the SES and why it was one of the best decisions he ever made. The following are highlights from that conversation to inform and educate other federal employees who are considering the move into the SES.

The application process

Most SES positions heavily favor the five-page resume format that covers both the executive core qualifications (ECQs) and the MCQs, the mandatory technical qualifications, for a position. It’s a fixed format. It has very, very specific guidelines. You build in how you meet not only the ECQs, but some of the sub competencies that exist there as well. First and foremost, if you’re at all considering an SES position, I would highly recommend searching out that five-page resume format and then working from that. In many cases, a lot of people hire writers to work on these five-page resumes because they’re so hyper specific, and they need to be individually tailored to the position you’re applying to much like every other federal job application that you do. That was kind of qualifier number one was getting that five-page resume making sure I could demonstrate that I could pass the ECQ as well as hit the technical competencies that were required.

Then you just apply like everybody else. I know a lot of people think that SES is all about who you know, but I was a cold applicant off the street. I applied and then there is a review of the resumes by an executive board. The executive board determines whether or not you’d have you meet the criteria to that would potentially pass OPM certification. Only those that have the potential get referred to the hiring manager. I applied in June and in early August I got to note that I had exceeded the qualifications by the executive review board, and then I was referred to the hiring manager. About a week and a half later, I had my first interview. It was a panel interview, and it was daunting, to say the least, being able to demonstrate core competencies from the ECQs perspective, but also demonstrate that I had the technical progress and the right perspective to be an executive was a real challenge.

I guess it went well because I got invited back for a second interview, completed the second interview, and then I was asked to have a conversation with the chief operating officer of the CDC, which I did a few weeks later. Then, most like everybody else, I got a tentative job offer. They let me know that I’d been tentatively selected, but the difference between the executive service and the general schedule is the tentative selection starts the process by which you write your ECQs. You do all these other things where all of your internal approvals have to be done first, before they’ll ever send your package to the Office of Personnel Management. My ECQs were sent to OPM and I got certified on the first pass. I will tell you that writing ECQs is no picnic. Plainly put, writing ECQs is almost like taking credit for the entire class’s worth of schoolwork when you’re in fifth grade. You cannot mention that you were on a team. You can’t mention the contributions of the others that were participating. It’s almost like you have to take credit for all of it. And it’s really, for me, it almost felt disingenuous that I couldn’t acknowledge the inputs and the successes of the team. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s very much about you telling your stories on how you meet or exceed the executive board qualifications. It’s a really challenging process.

In this case, I absolutely hired a writer. The way the writing works with ECQs is you meet with a consultant. I actually had drafts of my ECQs written so I provided those first, and this is really about telling stories and each ECQ you want to tell two specific stories about how you met or exceeded the core qualifications. I provided my first draft, the writer read them and then they came back with questions. It was like an interview and they asked me a ton of questions. Then they disappeared. They called me back and had more questions. I think we did this probably three or four rounds before I ever saw the first draft of my ECQs. But when it came out, I was actually frankly, very impressed because the ECQs are written in my own voice. It’s really, really kind of disconcerting, right, honestly, that they’ve gotten to know me that well in this period of time that they could write as if they were writing from my perspective. We refined, we iterated, we did some things and then we turned them in. The process is expensive. Hiring a writer is not cheap. Without quoting numbers, it was definitely in the thousands of dollars. But you’re making an investment at that point because you’ve already been selected for a position and if you don’t pass OPM certification, you cannot accept the job. So for me, I had already got selected for the job. This was my dream job. This was the job I wanted, so paying the money made the most sense in order to expedite the review has also made sure that I didn’t risk losing the position.

One year later

I think the biggest takeaway from my first year as an executive is, I can no longer be the smartest person in the room. The sheer breadth and depth of information that I would have to know in order to be a subject matter expert on all the areas in which are my responsibility, I would go crazy trying to be the smartest person in the room on all this. Instead, what I think I learned is that not only am I not the smartest person or I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room, I want to surround myself with good people that are subject matter experts who might have developed a bond and trust with that can advise me in order to inform my decision making.

The other thing is you need to think very strategically at this level. It’s easy to get caught in the hype or tactical, I’ve got this one problem that I need to solve. If I just do this one thing, I do that thing that I can solve that problem. If you’re not thinking strategically, that’s a tactical problem, and the way you solve it could have negative effects on other aspects across the office, across the agency, in my case, since I’m making decisions at the agency level, for the cybersecurity of the agency. So thinking strategically is a must. Having good GS-15 branch chiefs or direct reports is another must. One of the questions I’m often asked, and I think this is really good for people to know, is what makes a good GS-15? How do you be a good GS-15 that reports to an SES? How do you help enable an SES as a good as a GS-15? What I tell people to be a good GS-15, you need to be able to straddle the strategic and tactical realms. Simultaneously, you are operationally focused because your job is to implement, but you also need not to lose sight of the strategic because your decisions have the ability to affect others as well. So being able to be nimble and go back and forth from that operational to strategic is really key, as well as understanding how to build and maintain relationships with your peers, partners and stakeholders. Because if not, you’ll never be able to appreciate their equities and how your decisions will affect them. So learning to trust my GS-15, building that bond of trust understanding their subject matter expertise and then being okay not being the decision maker on everything and pushing the decision making down to the lowest level where it’s possible and then trusting people to do the job and then holding them accountable if they don’t.

Work-life balance

I’m very deliberate about my work-life balance. I carve out my own time, and work-life balance for me is good. It comes in waves, for sure. There are times where it’s worse than others. But I’m certainly not working 60 hour work weeks or anything like that.

Political appointees

Working with political appointees is interesting because they end up speaking with authority that maybe the career SESers don’t have. So what really ends up happening is that things happen faster when you’ve got a political appointee involved in something. They say, ‘Hey, wow, I worked for the deputy secretary, and she’s really interested in this’ and all of a sudden you’ve got resources, you’ve got commitments, things end up happening faster. So they are all well-intentioned people and usually, agents of change in a good way.

Advice for others considering the SES

First and foremost, be honest with yourself. Do you have the capacity, the capabilities to do the job? And remember, SES is a billet, it’s not a job. You’ve got to think about what’s the job you want and can you reasonably do that job? I think that we lack self-objectivity, a lot of times and really being brutally honest with yourself. I did not apply to a SES position two years before I started, when I was asked to apply because I didn’t think I was ready. So I think you should have that hard conversation with yourself.

Part two, be prepared to spend the money to do it the right way, hire the writer, get the resume, and get the ECQs done well. But also recognize that, in some agencies, SESers are preselected, as people know who’s going to get that job. And much like every other federal position, you may apply and never hear anything ever again, so it can be a little demoralizing and it can be a desensitizing. But perseverance is key if you truly have aspirations, then you should stick with it.

The last thing I’ll say is this, do it for the right reason. Don’t join the SES because you want to paycheck increase; don’t join the SES because you get to tell people what to do; don’t apply for SES jobs because you think that it’s going to look good on our civilian resume in a few years. Do it because you believe in the mission, believe in the organization, or like for me, do it because you want to make people’s lives better. You do it because your sphere of influence grows and you have the ability to make life better for more people.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Derace Lauderdale

80% percent of jobs are gained through networking and not a resume.

Source: Careerorigin

The post In reaching his career goal, Lewis shares how to navigate the path to the SES first appeared on Federal News Network.

Despite a massive push to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the federal workforce, new findings from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show that the road ahead is still a long and tough one.

Specifically for women working in the federal government, the topline numbers look much different than they do when you slice the data by specific demographic groups.

“The barriers faced by different groups of women are sometimes hidden in larger data,” Dexter Brooks, associate director of EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations, said in a statement.

Compared with the nationwide workforce, certain minority groups of women are relatively better represented in numbers in the federal sector. For example, American Indian and Alaska Native women comprise 0.8% of the federal workforce, more than double their representation in the nationwide workforce. African American women make up 11.7% of the federal workforce, and just 6.6% of the nationwide workforce.

But notably, three of EEOC’s latest reports reveal that these demographic groups, as well as Hispanic and Latina women working for the government, are behind in two key areas: pay and leadership positions.

“This is where we start seeing that they are underrepresented as executives, managers and supervisors compared to representation in the federal sector overall,” Mxolisi “Mike” Siwatu — whose research focused on American Indian, Alaska Native and African American women in government — said in an interview with Federal News Network.

African American women, for instance, represent 7.3% of all executives in government, while women overall comprise 38.5% of federal executives.

African American women in the federal workforce:

Women overall in the federal workforce:

“Line employees, supervisors, managers and executives have different levels of influence and responsibility in the workplace,” the EEOC report said. “Participation in supervisory, managerial and executive positions is one way to measure workforce advancement.”

The findings, however, were slightly different for EEOC’s report on Hispanic and Latina women in government.

“Hispanic women and Latinas are underrepresented in the federal workforce,” Karen Brummond, author of EEOC’s report on Hispanic and Latina women in government, said in an interview. “While they made up 6.2% of the civilian labor force nationwide, they only accounted for 4.5% of federal employees.”

Aside from general underrepresentation of Hispanic and Latina women, some levels of leadership positions are seeing more positive trends than others for that demographic group.

“Hispanic and Latina women held first line supervisory positions in the federal agencies at a higher rate than their participation in the federal workforce,” Brummond said. “But like American Indian and Alaska Native women and African American women, they were underrepresented in the higher leadership positions — they were underrepresented as managers and executives.”

Pay falling short of overall federal workforce

The workforce challenges for these groups don’t end at leadership representation either. African American women generally earn less in overall salary. Specifically, they make about $26,200 less than all federal employees, and $22,800 less than all women.

Similarly, American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women working in government earn less, on average, than American Indian and Alaska Native men, women overall and employees overall.

Wage amounts paid above American Indian and Alaska Native women in government:

Hispanic and Latina women working for the federal government also experience a pay disparity compared with other, larger sectors of the government’s workforce.

“We do see a substantial gap,” Brummond said.

In general, the gender-based pay gap has improved pretty dramatically over time. The current 5.6% average pay gap significantly smaller than it was 30 years ago — 24.5%.

In other words, women currently make 94.4 cents for every dollar men make in the federal workforce.

The gender pay gap in the federal sector is also smaller than the current 16% gap in the private sector.

Of course, despite improvements, racial and gender-based pay gaps are still prevalent in the federal workforce. Figuring out where exactly the remaining pay disparities come from is complicated. The General Schedule, the government’s pay system for about 1.5 million federal employees, is relatively stringent and, to some extent, can hedge against gender-based pay gaps more so than the private sector.

But the rigidity of the General Schedule pay system is also a double-edged sword. According to federal pay experts, in addition to helping move the government toward smaller racial and gender-based pay gaps than the private sector, the pay system can cause persistent pay inequity in the federal workforce as well.

Previous research from the Government Accountability Office in 2017 found that differences in occupation tend to explain the current racial and gender-based gaps, but EEOC experts said more research is necessary.

“Within the federal government, we do still find persistent disparities across the groups with respect to pay,” Siwatu said. “Currently, we don’t have an explanation for why that’s the case.”

In fact, GAO attributed much of the government’s gender pay gap to “unexplained factors,” such as promotions and career choices, which it can’t entirely measure.

Discrimination can play a role, too, GAO has said. Whether they’re conscious of it or not, agencies may tend to choose women for certain occupations and men for others.

In May, OPM took a step to try to close that pay gap a little further. Looking to eventually fully close the gender-based pay gap in the federal workforce, OPM proposed a rule that would bar agencies from using a federal job candidate’s previous salary history when setting pay as part of an employment offer. The proposed rule is still making its way through the federal regulatory process and has not yet been finalized.

There were other factors measured in the EEOC reports, but Siwatu said the top two most telling factors were pay gaps and drop-offs in leadership positions. But getting to the root cause will take further research.

“We see that the pay gaps are there now — we acknowledge that as an emerging issue,” Siwatu said. “Then it becomes a question of why is that there, and what to do about it.”

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

In 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman in US history elected to the House of Representatives.

Source: National Park Service

The post How diverse are the executives, managers and supervisors working in government? first appeared on Federal News Network.

President Joe Biden named 232 Senior Executive Service (SES), Senior-Level (SL) and Scientific and Professional (ST) members across 31 agencies who will take home an award in recognition of their extensive contributions to public service.

“Public servants are unsung heroes — working to better the lives of families across America,” White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients said Thursday. “They do everything from making sure you get your tax refund, to helping you set up your small business, to keeping us all safe at home. They get things done with grace and skill and first and foremost to serve the American people.”

Like every year, the winners hail from a wide array of agencies and many different disciplines. The work of some of this year’s recipients, for instance, range from research on the disinfection of viral aerosols and detection of viruses at the Environmental Protection Agency, to the design, development and testing of batteries on manned space missions at NASA.

Within the PRA program, there are two categories of awards: the Distinguished Rank Award and the Meritorious Rank Award.

In any given year, about 5% of the entire senior career federal workforce will receive a Meritorious Rank Award. Only 1% earn a Distinguished Rank Award.

The winners also typically receive a cash bonus as part of the award. The Distinguished Rank Award offers a one-time bonus of 35% of the recipient’s base salary. Meritorious Rank Award winners receive a bonus equal to 20% of their base salary.

The annual Presidential Rank Awards program began in 1978 as part of the Civil Service Reform Act. The goal was to recognize the outstanding efforts of career senior leaders in the federal workforce.

The PRA program saw a brief hiatus in 2020 when President Donald Trump canceled the awards for one year due to what he said was economic uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic. For the last few years, the program has been operating virtually.

In 2021, Biden became the first president in about 15 years to publicly recognize the PRA winners.

The Office of Personnel Management helps run the PRA program by developing the criteria for agencies to submit nominations and evaluate the nominees. OPM then sends its recommendations to the president for final selection.

“Every day, tens of thousands of dedicated federal employees are solving the nation’s most pressing challenges and developing new technologies to improve the lives of millions,” OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said. “The Presidential Rank Awards highlight public servants who exemplify integrity, exceptional leadership and a relentless commitment to the American people. Congratulations to all the awardees. The federal government and the American people are safer and better off thanks to your hard work and dedication.”

The full list of the 2023 Presidential Rank Awards winners is available on OPM’s website.

The post President Biden names 232 winners of the 2023 Presidential Rank Awards first appeared on Federal News Network.

Recently, the Senior Executives Association announced the winners of its annual awards program. Among this year’s winners was Avie Snow. Now retired, Snow spent several years as a financial manager for the Coast Guard, the Homeland Security Department, and ending at Veterans Affairs. Federal Drive with Tom Temin,  Executive Producer Eric White got the chance to speak with Avie to learn more about her career path.

Interview Transcript:  

Avie Snow I came to VA in 2014. I came there. I was hired to implement a new, integrated finance and acquisition system at the time, I don’t know if they knew or if we knew about adding assets to that, you know, integrated assets, finance, and acquisition. But, you know, essentially that’s why I was brought to the department. They had an antiquated and still do, 40 year old, over 40 years old financial system and they had never been integrated with the acquisition system. And so I came there to do that work, and that’s what I did.  

 Eric White Yeah. And you say antiquated. Obviously, that comes with a whole host of problems, you know, coming from places such as Homeland Security and the Coast Guard where, you know, maybe things are a little bit more updated. What were some of the challenges that came with having an antiquated acquisition system?  

 Avie Snow You know, interestingly, the biggest challenge of all was change management. It’s because when you have a system in place for that long and you have all the experts and you have all the people that know how to use it, they don’t want to change. And VA is a behemoth. It’s huge. It’s, you know, second only to DoD in size. And so, you know, I had done this work at Coast Guard. I had, you know, attempted to do the work at DHS. It was a very litigious environment. But we had implemented other systems, travel systems and whatnot, you know, with 23 components. And I can honestly say that I had never come across a culture like VA where it was just it is the culture that will stop it. I mean, the system works, but the real issue is that, you know, will the culture accept the change? And change management was one of the biggest difficulties, I would say. So, you know, so there’s that aspect of it. And then because it’s such a legacy environment, integrating with other legacy systems, I mean, VA has systems that are over 60 years old. You know, they were in months. You know, this is stuff that came out of M.I.T. in the seventies and early eighties. And so that, you know, the technical aspects to some of that are very, very difficult. So you have the technology issues. The other thing is, is that you actually have hospitals, you know, we can’t interrupt that supply chain. I mean, you literally, you know, we can’t impact patient care. We can’t impact veteran care. And so what happens is, is you’re literally working in an environment where the systems, no matter how antiquated they are, they’re necessary for that every day care and feeding of the veteran.  

 Eric White And obviously, supply chain issues were front and center during the past two or three years or so. You know, given all of the problems that came arose from the pandemic, it made things put strain, obviously on the medical system. What were your role, I guess, in managing just how, you know, where finances were coming from weren’t necessarily reliable?  

 Avie Snow Well, we were integrating with those systems, so we actually worked with those folks. Those systems were in place and operating and whatnot. But our goal was to integrate seamlessly with those systems and not impact patient care in any way or any, you know, supplies to, you know, hospitals or clinics or what have you. So, I mean, those you know, those apps operated as they as they do, it was our job to figure out how to integrate with those systems without it impacting it. You know, it’s just all the things that have to be taken into consideration as you move forward with an effort of this scale.  

 Eric White We’re speaking with Avie Snow. She is the retired associate deputy assistant secretary for Financial Management and Business Transformation, and also the recipient from the Senior Executives Association, Senior Executive Professional Lifetime Achievement Award. Let’s get into those words. Lifetime achievement, obviously, a long, long career. If you could just give us a few highlights and what are your what you feel are your biggest accomplishments and why do you deserve this award Avie?  

 Avie Snow Yeah, well, it’s humbling. I’ll tell you. You know, I started out you know, it’s funny, I started out as an ADP intern in the 80s, and I went to the Night Vision Lab and I worked on we were very much I mean, Night Vision was a soldier in the field, and I worked on all kinds of different programs there. I was there for Operation Desert Storm, the original issues with Bosnia, you know, So working on all those. Part of big teams really outfitting soldiers in the field to, you know, accomplish, you know, whatever the whatever the missions were. I also had the luck to be at night vision when everything started going to the web, you know, and so and it was a very innovative place to be. And it was it was research and development. And so I was really on that cutting edge of WWW you know, and it was interesting because the Army had actually had ARPANET long before there was, you know, the World Wide Web. And so I really learned a lot about technology there. And then I went to the Coast Guard and of course, very, very different mission than the Army. But I got into more of what I would call support systems. I actually worked on it’s funny, I worked on a, you know, the H.R. system at first whatever, but I met Ed Murray, who actually was my boss’s boss at the VA, and they were doing they were actually moving Coast Guard systems from, you know, at the time it wasn’t even really client server, but it was really they had just very localized systems and we were moving everything to the web. So that’s really where I got my experience with the financial system, simplified acquisition systems and integration, really doing a lot of cutting edge stuff, moving systems because the Coast Guard was actually divided into quadrants. We had land area and PAC area and you know, there was there was the North United States in the southern United States. And of course, Coast Guard, they had all the water, you know, think about all the water, the waterways, the lakes, the you know, so what we started doing is consolidating everything and bringing everything to the web. And that’s really where I got my start on, you know, on the financial and acquisition system side. And I have to tell you, you know, first of all, I loved working for the Coast Guard and I had some of my biggest successes and some of my biggest failures. And they say you learn from your failures and you really do. The first time we ever pulled together for we you know, we had this it was a simplified acquisition system and we had four disparate databases serving those four quadrants of the United States for the Coast Guard. And we tried to bring those all together and put them on the Web. And interestingly, the data that it was, it was a mess. And Admiral Allen, Thad Allen was actually the chief of staff of the Coast Guard at the time. And he said, Avie, you’re going to fix this. Right. And I go, “Yes, sir, I am.” You know, And so, you know, but we learned a lot. We learned so much about data. We learned what happens with configurations and why, you know, these things need to be vetted. And we learned about mock migrations of data and really, you know, how to how to get how to get something implemented correctly with, you know, data in place, the proper training, the proper testing. And that really was the foundation for everything that I did. But I but I have to say, I had great success at the Coast Guard and we were really ahead of our time. And I, I think what I didn’t realize was I had a lot of people paving the way for me. And it really wasn’t until I got to DHS where I realized that because there I was, I became like the front line. I became an SES. And what I didn’t know about, you know, the political world and OMB and how, you know, how politics played into this. I that’s where I really learned that all those folks at the Coast Guard were paving the way for me to be able to work and deliver. And like I said, we you know, we had incredible success. You know, 911 happened and we were able to bring on TSA and the air marshals and domestic nuclear detection and bring them all onto one system and then, you know, and then go from there. So at least they had finance and acquisition and simplified acquisition, you know, that purchasing power, you know, those kinds of things. And then, you know, they asked me to come to the department and do the same, you know, across of what was becoming the Department of Homeland Security. So I think my the real success and to make a very long, long answer just slightly longer was really that ability to work and deliver at the Coast Guard. It really provided the foundation for everything that was to come.  

The post Some much-deserved recognition for a longtime fed in the financial management arena first appeared on Federal News Network.

Senior officials at the National Science Foundation plan to cut the salaries of several hundred employees starting in January.

NSF leaders made the announcement to staff after learning that the agency, in violation of federal law, has been overpaying some of its scientists, engineers and program directors for the last six years.

Approximately 315 NSF employees on levels 4 and 5 of the Administratively Determined (AD) pay scale will see cuts to their salaries take effect on or after Jan. 14, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and Chief Operating Officer Karen Marrongelle said Thursday in an email to agency employees, obtained by Federal News Network.

“We recognize pay is a personal issue and can have a significant impact on people’s day-to-day lives,” Panchanathan and Marrongelle said in the email. “We value all of our staff’s contributions and their dedication to our agency and mission, and dedicated a significant amount of time and resources to try and get the best possible outcome in this difficult situation.”

The pay discrepancy first came up in January. NSF leaders initially planned to cap the 2023 pay raise for these employees, as Federal News Network’s first reported.

Days later, agency leaders made the subsequent decision to enact the full pay raise after NSF received pushback from the agency’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). As a result, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reviewed the salaries of AD-4 and AD-5 NSF employees.

Unlike for employees on the General Schedule (GS) pay scale, NSF has the authority to determine pay raises for those on the AD pay scale — but only up to a certain point.

Federal statute prohibits agencies from letting employees’ pay exceed the wages of those paid at level IV of the Executive Schedule. Taking into account locality pay, NSF must technically cap employees on the AD pay scale at the same rate as those on level III of the Executive Schedule.

AD-4 and AD-5 employees at NSF currently make between $160,889 and $206,541 annually. But according to federal statute, the employees should be making no more than $195,000 in salary, since that’s the maximum wage for level III of the Executive Schedule for 2023.

On the advice of former NSF General Counsel, NSF said it believed the agency had the flexibility to increase the pay caps outside of these regulations.

“This determination was not validated with outside entities, such as OPM,” NSF said in a fact sheet sent to employees about the pay cap, obtained by Federal News Network. “It did not become apparent until the federal pay increase that was passed in the fiscal 2023 appropriation bill in December 2022, that there was a discrepancy.”

Late last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) informed NSF that the agency did not have the unique authority to implement the full 2023 pay increase in instances where employees’ salaries would surpass the governmentwide pay cap, Panchanathan and Marrongelle said.

NSF has been overpaying some employees in the AD-4 and AD-5 pay bands since 2017, according to federal regulations.

Although NSF first learned about the possibility of pay cuts in February, leaders said they waited to inform employees to first confer with OPM and DOJ and ensure that there was no alternate route.

“We did not want to release partial or incomplete information, which would have been a disservice to employees,” NSF said. “It is not something anyone takes lightly, and the team had to take the time to make sure there wasn’t a different interpretation that would allow for a different outcome.”

After confirming with DOJ, “we were advised to address this issue of overpayment as soon as possible,” NSF said.

The agency now plans to reduce the affected employees’ salaries to fit within that externally set pay cap starting on or after Jan. 14.

Based on current pay rates, affected employees would see a salary cut of about $10,000 annually, but since the change won’t take place until 2024, it’s not yet determined exactly how much the employees’ pay will be cut. The planned federal pay raise and OPM’s pay tables for 2024 are not yet finalized.

If feds do receive a 5.2% average raise as expected, pay for these employees would be cut by about $2,500 per year.

Jesús Soriano, president of AFGE Local 3403, which represents NSF employees, said the timing of the announcement makes the news particularly difficult for agency staff.

“On the eve of a potential shutdown, Panchanathan and Marrongelle found it appropriate to announce an unprecedented pay cut for hundreds of hardworking NSF scientists and engineers,” Soriano told Federal News Network. “The steep pay cut for federal workers [also came] just after OPM announced a significant increase in insurance premiums. It begs the question, how can these executives keep their jobs after showing such disregard for the federal worker?”

Panchanathan and Marrongelle said they recognize the announcement comes at a challenging time and that it causes hardships for impacted NSF employees and their families.

“We thought it was imperative to send this information as soon as possible so that the impacted employees have time to get more personalized information and plan accordingly,” the leaders said. “We deeply regret this outcome and are committed to evaluating any and all tools we have available for all employees.”

Soriano said NSF management did not inform the union until just one hour before making the agency-wide announcement about the upcoming changes.

“The union asked three times, orally and in writing, whether NSF would abide or not by President Biden’s plan to increase federal workers’ pay by 5.2%. They did not respond,” Soriano said. “Instead, they called a hurried session with NSF program officers to inform them of their nefarious plans.”

Additionally, Soriano said he’s concerned about the long-term impacts of cutting pay. He pointed to the growing number of retirement-eligible NSF employees as an already major risk.

“NSF management continues to showcase utter incompetence,” Soriano said. “Instead of attracting much-needed talent, NSF insists on unfriendly working conditions that lead to attrition.”

Not every AD-4 and AD-5 employee will be impacted. Those who are far enough below the pay cap will still receive the full 5.2% average pay raise, if enacted.

And importantly, pay for employees in levels AD-1 through AD-3 will not be affected by the upcoming pay decrease.

Additionally, NSF employees will not be required to repay any past overpayments, NSF said.

NSF also clarified that the pay cuts will not impact employees’ “high-three,” a formula that uses a federal employee’s highest three years of salary to help determine their retirement annuities.

“For most people, their last three years of working before they retire end up being their ‘high-three,’ but it doesn’t have to be if they worked in a different position and/or had earned more money during a different period,” NSF said.

OPM’s website states that employees’ “high-three” can indeed come from an earlier period in their career, if employees’ basic pay was higher during that period.

The challenge of a pay cap isn’t unique to NSF. Many governmentwide senior federal employees face what’s commonly called “pay compression,” once they reach the upper-most levels of the General Schedule (GS) and the Senior Executive Service (SES) pay systems.

Pay compression is a phenomenon that affects some senior-level feds, depending on where they work and their spot on the career ladder. According to federal statute, salaries for GS career employees cannot exceed the pay rates for political appointees and others at level IV on the Executive Schedule. Even though Congress or the president raise federal employee salaries each year, a pay cap has remained in place for those on the Executive Schedule — and therefore also remains for federal managers situated in the upper levels of the General Schedule.

For years, federal organizations have pressed for a legislative fix to pay compression. Many advocates for senior executives say pay compression disincentivizes career senior leaders from taking on or keeping managerial positions in government.

“Pay compression skews the risk-reward trade-off for employees advancing in their federal careers,” Senior Executive Association President Marcus Hill said in a letter to OPM in July. “At a certain point, the risks of advancing in management continue to grow, but the rewards do not keep pace.”

The Biden administration hinted in the fiscal 2023 budget request that it would propose a way to address pay compression, but so far there has not been any movement on this promise.

Going forward, for NSF, the agency plans to evaluate other options to try to support staff who will be taking on the upcoming pay cuts.

“We are taking the appropriate steps to ensure we are in compliance and are working with those affected,” an NSF spokesperson told Federal News Network. “NSF leadership values all employees and we know this is a very difficult issue and there will be significant impacts to staff and their families. We will continue to evaluate all tools we have available for all employees.”

Panchanathan and Marrongelle encouraged managers and supervisors to consider additional flexibilities that can help support recruitment strategies and long-term staffing plans.

“We understand that the competition for talent is at an all-time high nationwide and we are extremely sensitive to the challenges in both attracting and retaining employees of the highest caliber at NSF,” the agency leaders said. “The value of employment with NSF extends well beyond salary to offer a total compensation package that is highly desirable and rewarding careers.”

The post National Science Foundation to make salary cuts after law shows some feds have been ‘overpaid’ since 2017 first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Small business contracting will get a makeover under a new Senate bill. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Small Business Committee, wants to end what she calls too many “easy As” on the Small Business Administration’s annual scorecard. Her new bill would limit the amount credit agencies can receive for awards to small firms and would revamp the goaling structure. Ernst introduced the Accountability and Clarity in Contracts to Engage Small Suppliers and Small Businesses (ACCESS) Act yesterday, as the first step to make these and other major changes to federal small business contracting. One provision would mandate the use of the "rule of two" for all contracting actions and another would change the SBA scorecard to focus more on the composition of the industrial base.
  (Sen. Ernst to agencies: No more 'easy As' on the SBA scorecard - Federal News Network)
• Federal wildland firefighters are inching closer to the edge of a steep pay cliff. The frontline workers got a major pay boost as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but the temporary funding for that pay raise runs out on Sept. 30. Firefighters and officials at the National Federation of Federal Employees plan to meet with congressional leaders next week in support of the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act. They are urging passage of the bill to make the pay raise permanent before the end of the month. Without the legislation, federal wildland firefighters would see cuts to their base pay by at least 50% and in some cases up to $20,000 annually.
  (NFFE targets leadership in Congress to pass wildland firefighter pay cliff bill - NFFE)
• A longtime member of the Postal Service’s regulatory body defends a closer look at the agency’s sweeping changes. The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) is moving ahead with a public inquiry into massive USPS network changes, over the objections of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Robert Taub, a member of the commission since 2011, said the regulator is well within its jurisdiction to oversee the sweeping changes. “It may be the most fundamental change to the network since Ben Franklin was postmaster general,” Taub said. Taub also said that the PRC has not done anything to stop, alter [or] change the trajectory of USPS’ 10-year reform plan. President Joe Biden nominated Taub to serve a third six-year term on the commission.
  (USPS regulator defends probe into ‘far-reaching’ network shakeup - Federal News Network)
• The rulemaking process for sweeping new cybersecurity regulations is nearing a crucial stage. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is nearly finished writing a notice of proposed rulemaking for cyber incident reporting requirements. Director Jen Easterly said CISA hopes to have the notice out this year or in early 2024. The rules are not expected to become effective until 2025. They will require critical infrastructure organizations to report cyber incidents to CISA within 72 hours of discovering them.
  (CIRCIA, CMMC inch closer with rulemaking marathons nearing crucial stage - Federal News Network)
• Close to four years after its inception, the Space Force has its own mission statement. After asking for submissions from Guardians, and receiving 135 responses in just two weeks, the service picked the following motto: "Secure our nation’s interests in, from, and to space.” In July, officer, enlisted and civilian Guardians from four field commands and major commands participated in a series of eight focus groups to provide feedback and further shape the language for the new mission statement.
  (Space Force announces new mission statement - Space Force)
• The Senate is moving forward with three of its 12 appropriations bills. Measures dealing with Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; and Agriculture are slated for a floor vote early next week. That is after the Senate advanced all 12 of its appropriations bills out of committee with bipartisan support. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged the House to reach across the aisle and push forward with its own appropriations package to avoid a possible government shutdown.
  (Majority Leader Schumer floor remarks - Senate Democrats)
• The General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service will complete its much-anticipated reorganization by early fiscal 2024. FAS Commissioner Sonny Hashmi said the new structure will replace the regional offices with a centralized reporting model. One of the biggest changes is that every agency customer will no longer work with various FAS teams, but have one set of experts to address all their products, services and other needs. Hashmi said the goal of the reorganization will be to improve how FAS serves federal agency customers and simplify their interactions with GSA staff.
  (GSA shifts FAS organizational structure to align with customers - GSA)
• The Pentagon plans to focus on three areas to improve its acquisition process. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Rodha Plumb said her office will prioritize better use of acquisition tools and authorities, and the use of the adaptive acquisition framework. A second priority is removing barriers to integration and making sure new systems have joint operability and are secure and compliant. The third priority is recruiting and training the acquisition workforce. Plumb said the Defense Department is offering new incentives and a scholarship-for-service program to attract new workers.
  (Pentagon’s top three priorities for a better acquisition program - Federal News Network)
• The Small Business Administration is setting a new baseline of in-office workdays for its executives and supervisors. Starting Sept. 25, SBA will require all political appointees, members of the Senior Executive Service and senior-level staff to report to the office for at least five days per two-week pay period. All remaining telework-eligible SBA supervisors in the National Capital Region must report to the office for at least five days per two-week pay period, starting on Nov. 5. SBA said more in-office days may be required, depending on the nature of an employee's work.
  (SBA sets new in-office baseline for executives, supervisors - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has new tips for how agencies can stop hackers from taking down their websites. In a new Capacity Enhancement Guide released this week, CISA told agencies how they can defend against Distributed Denial of Service attacks. That is when hackers flood a server with traffic to prevent legitimate users from accessing websites and services. CISA said agencies should consider how critical a given website or service is and then apply appropriate defenses. The cyber agency also said federal departments should get away from outdated, on-premises security solutions.
  (CISA releases capacity enhancement guide to strengthen agency resilience to DDoS attack - CISA)
• The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) retirement claims backlog climbs for a second straight month. In August, the number of claims in the backlog rose to almost 18,000, which is a 5% increase from July. That is almost 5,000 applications above the steady state goal of 13,000. More than 7,300 federal employees filed for retirement in August, almost 1,000 more than filed in July. OPM processed almost 6,500 claims, slightly fewer than the month before. Applicants did see the monthly processing time for claims drop to 74 days, an improvement over last month's 85 days.
  (OPM retirement claims backlog climbs for second straight month - Federal News Network )

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Although employee demographics in the Senior Executive Service have diversified slightly in recent years, the improvements are not enough for some federal manager organizations.

Data from the Partnership for Public Service, published last month, showed that people of color made up 16% of career SES members in 2007, and by 2022, that percentage increased to 24.7%.

“That increase has not been at the rate that we would have liked to have seen, or even anticipated. There’s a lot to be done,” said Tyra Dent, president of the African American Federal Executive Association, in an interview with Federal News Network. “Having voices from other groups enriches solutions and strategies that the agency may be developing to pursue their mission. Absent [those voices], it really is a void.”

But despite disappointment, AAFEA, along with the Senior Executives Association, also see the latest findings from the Partnership for Public Service as an opportunity. Even having the data in the first place, a pursuit that the Partnership began in 2007, is significant, said Marcus Hill, SEA’s president.

“What gets measured gets done,” Hill told Federal News Network. “Now, I think it’s up to entities like the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget and Congress to take that data and actually put together an action plan to hopefully make it better.”

Of course, creating an action plan to improve federal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) is a massive undertaking — especially in the upper ranks of government, where diversity lags behind that of the federal workforce as a whole. But agencies are already working through some of those early steps, after the Biden administration required agencies to create strategic plans, as part of the 2021 DEIA executive order. Agencies’ DEIA plans vary in size and scope, depending on the individual end goals, but Hill said all agencies should focus on bringing DEIA to the attention of top leadership.

“While a lot of agencies have diversity and inclusion officers, in my mind, the agency head has to take that role on,” Hill said. “We really need to integrate the importance of this topic with those agency heads and help them to understand why it’s so important.”

Lower levels of the General Schedule are generally more diverse, and moving up the scale, the demographics become increasingly white and male. But that disparity presents agencies with an opportunity, Hill said, to consider more internal candidates to hire into the SES whenever positions open up. Since SES members generally skew older, more are now becoming retirement-eligible.

Data from the Partnership showed that the number of career SES separations is on an upward trajectory, most recently with 903 members leaving the SES in fiscal 2022. The vast majority, somewhere between 65% and 75% of those separations each year, are due to retirement.

That trend likely means more openings in the SES are coming for agencies. To fill those roles, specifically, agencies can look at internal employees who have already gone through SES candidate development programs, and who are already certified to take on the career leadership positions.

“Agencies have an opportunity to develop internal pipelines within their organization, where they are intentional about developing and preparing leaders within their agency,” Dent said.

“When it comes time for an agency to fill the position, some agencies don’t necessarily turn to that list of certified candidates that they invested in to fill those positions,” Hill added. “Sometimes, the answer is right there in your own backyard.”

In addition to broadening consideration on the tail end, Dent and Hill said it’s just as important to diversify applicant pools on the front end, too, to reach a more diverse workforce, and ultimately a more diverse SES cohort down the road.

“A lot of that has to do with holding the hiring managers and appointing authorities accountable for ensuring that there is a broad pool of applicants to pull from, and then making the appointments accordingly,” Dent said.

The road is a long, and often slow one, but there are steps that agencies can take immediately to start looking at this more as well, Dent said. Diversifying the members of the interview panels who consider federal job candidates, for instance, can help bring in a bigger diversity of perspective.

“You’re bringing in not only racial diversity, but diversity of thought and experience,” Dent said. “And that just enriches the whole process and brings to bear things that others may not see through their lens.”

And sometimes, it’s even simpler than that — for Hill, the road to progress on DEIA starts with agencies acknowledging that the limited diversity a problem in the first place.

“Quite frankly, when you look at the statistics, there has been no significant change over time,” he said. “That’s why it’s so critically important to … bring those diversities of thoughts, perspectives and experiences, in terms of problem-solving, and helping agencies continuously improve.”

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New legislation in the House is trying, at least in part, to address a years-long issue impacting some of the senior-most leaders in the federal government.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced the Federal Employee Pay Compression Relief Act Tuesday, which aims to reduce the overall effects pay compression.

“This bill will allow many of the longest-serving federal public servants to receive the pay adjustments they are entitled to but for the pay cap,” Norton said in a press statement Tuesday. “This bill will help the federal government hire and retain the most qualified individuals for the job.”

Pay compression exists on the General Schedule because, according to federal statute, salaries for career GS employees cannot exceed pay rates for political appointees and others at level IV on the Executive Schedule. Even though Congress or the president raise federal employee salaries each year, a pay cap has remained in place for those on the Executive Schedule — and therefore also for some GS-15s, depending on where they work and their spot on the federal career ladder. While the White House proposed a 5.2% federal pay raise for 2024, those in the senior-most levels of government would not receive that pay bump, if it were to bring them above the currently set pay cap.

Specifically, Norton’s legislation would let federal employees who reach the pay cap in their respective pay system receive base and locality pay adjustments, to help bring them toward what their pay would have been without the pay cap.

The new bill is another step toward trying to fix the pay issue more broadly, after the Biden administration in the fiscal 2024 budget request also hinted at a goal of addressing pay compression. The Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to a request for comment about any progress on a proposal to fix pay compression and other pay issues.

Advocacy organizations for career federal leaders, including the Senior Executives Association and the Professional Managers Association, have been particularly vocal on the topic of pay compression. Jason Briefel, SEA’s director of policy and outreach said he was “grateful” for the bill’s introduction.

“This bill, if enacted, would provide meaningful relief to federal employees who have been unable to receive full compensation for their work due to pay compression and pay caps,” Briefel said in an email to Federal News Network.

And while the legislation is a step in addressing pay compression, there is certainly more work ahead for federal pay reform overall.

“With more than 100 overlapping white collar pay systems, it is not clear that this bill would not impact managers on the IRS’s alternative pay scale, thus continue to create a system of winners and losers that disincentivizes careers in management,” PMA’s National Vice President Kelly Reyes said in an email. “The General Schedule requires much more comprehensive reforms to address the continued pay compression at the higher ranks of government and to bring federal compensation into the modern era.”

In 2022, Norton made initial plans to introduce a bill addressing pay compression, but the legislation was never officially filed. While her new bill does not solve all pay compression issues in the federal government, Norton said it’s an important step in the right direction. She said last year that she plans to find additional routes to reduce pay compression as well.

“It will not resolve the issue entirely, but any action is better than no action,” Briefel said.

But, Briefel said, SEA continues to await details from the Biden administration about its proposals on pay reform, which it promised in the fiscal 2024 budget request.

In July, SEA, PMA and the Government Managers Coalition (GMC) sent several letters to top agency officials, urging them to move forward with proposing a specific way to fix to pay compression for federal employees, something that can have negative effects on federal executives.

The organizations’ leaders said pay compression, for example, can disincentivize individuals from moving into positions in the Senior Executive Service, which can often reach that pay cap.

“Pay compression skews the risk-reward trade-off for employees advancing in their federal careers,” SEA President Marcus Hill said in a letter last month, addressed to leaders at OMB, the Labor Department and the Office of Personnel Management — the three agencies that comprise the President’s Pay Agent. “At a certain point, the risks of advancing in management continue to grow, but the rewards do not keep pace.”

After sending the series of letters, Briefel said the OPM and OMB have not yet offered a clear response on their plans to move forward with initial promises included in the fiscal 2023 budget proposal. But SEA leaders plan to meet with the two agencies later this month to discuss possible paths forward for pay reform.

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As you look higher up in the ranks of the federal workforce, you’ll find less diversity among some of the government’s senior-most leaders.

That lack of diversity in the Senior Executive Service — the cohort of federal senior leaders serving just under agencies’ top political appointees — has been evident for decades. Notably, though, it has improved in just the past few years.

Over time, the SES has grown in numbers and become more diverse along the way, but it’s still not fully representative of the federal workforce’s overall demographics, the Partnership for Public Service said in a report published Tuesday.

“As public servants, a primary responsibility is being a steward of the public good,” Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, told Federal News Network. “Having a government made up of a broad swath of our population is more representative of the people. Diversity across the board is something that improves performance, improves the public’s perception of public service, and more broadly, it’s something that you should be keeping an eye on, which is part of the reason why we’ve done this report.”

Currently, people of color represent 24.7% of the career SES workforce. It’s a slow-moving but significant step up from the 16% of SES members in 2007 who were people of color.

But that increase looks smaller compared with the federal workforce overall, where 39.2% of feds identified as people of color in 2022.

The Partnership’s data, which spans a quarter-century, also showed that the percentage of women career SES members increased from 20.1% to 37.6% between 1998 and 2022. But again, the percentage still lags behind the 44% women who make up the federal workforce overall.

The report’s trends mirror recent data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which similarly showed that higher federal workforce diversity is more concentrated in the lower levels of the General Schedule.

The Partnership found that the SES also consistently struggles with a limited age range of those who hold the senior-level positions. For decades, feds in their 50s have made up the majority of the SES. Just over a quarter of SES members are above age 60, but more each year are starting to reach retirement age, with fewer younger feds to fill in behind them.

The number of those leaving the SES is increasing, too, in large part simply due to retirement. At the end of fiscal 2020, 40.6% of SES members were eligible to retire within a year. But 79.8% will be retirement-eligible by the end of 2030, according to the Partnership’s report.

At the same time, there are about 200 new hires coming into career SES positions every fiscal year. The hires come from a combination of those moving up in the ranks of federal service, as well as those coming in from the private sector.

While there have been ups and downs with the exact number of new hires each year, the number of newly hired SES members has flatlined in just the past couple years.

“200 hires, on average, a year is not very many,” Stier said. “But having an inflow of talent from the outside improves diversity. One of the things that I would highlight here is, frankly, how few folks from the outside actually come into those senior positions.”

But that SES hiring needs to happen in the right fields, too. The IT workforce has seen the largest year-over-year growth in SES members, going from 0.5% of the overall SES, to 3.4%, in the last two decades. That’s an increase of 542.6%. But for Stier, the increase hasn’t gone far enough.

“I’m not sure that we’ve seen the extent of reshaping of the occupational focus as we should have,” Stier said. “To be an effective leader in today’s world, having that technology sophistication, I think is fundamental.”

And although 80% of the federal workforce lives and works outside the national capital region, SES members more often tend to work in the area. For the last 25 years, 7 in 10 career SES members have worked in the D.C. region.

Stier, though, said that concentration isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“You want your senior leaders to be interacting with each other across the organizational lines of agencies as much as possible,” he said.

For career SES members, the bigger issue is they rarely cross over to work at different agencies, usually opting instead to stay in a single agency or position for the majority of their time in the senior ranks of government. It’s certainly a problem, Stier said, but something that more remote work opportunities could help to improve, while addressing diversity as well.

“The original concept of the SES was this top-level group of executives that would move across government to address our biggest and most consequential challenges. I don’t believe that vision has played out,” Stier said. “You need to understand what you have — that’s the purpose of why we did this.”

The post The Senior Executive Service remains less diverse than the federal workforce overall first appeared on Federal News Network.

Nearly 33,000 federal employees are almost set to receive a little more in their paychecks starting in 2024, thanks to new proposed rules from the Office of Personnel Management to establish four new locality pay areas.

Many federal unions and organizations have lauded OPM’s proposal, but at the same time, federal manager advocacy groups said these relatively small tweaks to locality pay are only the tip of the iceberg.

“Creating new locality pay zones when systemic compensation issues holistically undermine the government’s competitive posture is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” Senior Executives Association President Marcus Hill said in a July 7 letter to the President’s Pay Agent. “It is not enough.”

The Federal Salary Council and the President’s Pay Agent, two bodies tasked with determining the structure of the federal pay system, are not doing enough to address systemic compensation challenges for the federal workforce, said the SEA and Professional Managers Association. The two organizations wrote letters, obtained by Federal News Network, to top leaders at the Labor Department, Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget — the three agencies that comprise the President’s Pay Agent — to express urgent concerns over a long-flawed system for federal pay.

The two groups are now calling on the Biden administration to propose a specific way to fix to pay compression for federal employees. For years, SEA and PMA have been vocal over the issue of pay compression on the General Schedule, a phenomenon that affects some GS-15s, depending on where they work and their spot on the federal career ladder. Salaries for career employees on the General Schedule can’t exceed pay rates for political appointees and others at level IV on the Executive Schedule, according to federal statute. Even though Congress or the president raise federal employee salaries each year, a pay cap has remained in place for those on the Executive Schedule — and therefore also remains for federal managers situated in the upper levels of the General Schedule.

“Pay compression skews the risk-reward trade-off for employees advancing in their federal careers,” SEA’s Hill said in the letter. “At a certain point, the risks of advancing in management continue to grow, but the rewards do not keep pace.”

“The Federal Salary Council has failed to offer recommendations addressing the critical issue of pay compression and the devastating effects it has both for individual employees affected by compression and pay caps as well as for agencies competing for in-demand talent,” PMA Executive Director Chad Hooper said in another letter to the pay agent. He additionally urged the pay agent to conduct a study on the effects of pay compression, and if it makes feds more likely to leave their jobs.

“Looking at attrition, retention, promotion and other key human capital indicators, the government must know if employees affected by pay compression are acting similar or different as their peers who have not hit the cap,” Hooper said.

And it’s not just pay compression. The President’s Pay Agent, for years, has said in annual reports to the president that “major legislative reforms” are needed to address issues with federal pay overall. For more than a decade, federal pay raises have trailed raises of those in the private sector, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But for Jason Briefel, SEA’s director of policy and outreach, simply writing that there is a need for reform is not enough.

“I’ve read 20 years of those reports — you get to a certain point where it doesn’t even matter if it’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House. They both are saying that the system doesn’t work, it’s leaving certain employees behind and it needs to be revisited,” Briefel said in an interview with Federal News Network. “And yet, we seem like we’re in this never-ending carousel ride, where somebody is just pointing to the person to the left of them, but nobody ever does the hard work and comes up with a proposal.”

Further adding to the rhetoric, the Biden administration earlier this calendar year hinted at a goal of fixing pay compression in the fiscal 2024 budget request. So far, there is no specific plan publicly available from the administration to address pay compression. In another letter last week, leaders in the Government Managers Coalition (GMC) said they “eagerly await” the promised proposal from the Biden administration.

“It is our understanding that OPM has considered options for solving key pay issues such as pay compression but has not yet drafted legislation,” the GMC leaders said in the July 5 letter, addressed to OPM Director Kiran Ahuja. “We cannot emphasize enough how dire the situation is becoming at agencies … The government cannot function without managers and leaders, yet the current pay structure disincentives employees from entering leadership at every point.”

The GMC letter comes just ahead of a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing scheduled for Thursday which may speak to the federal employee pay raise. The committee is scheduled to consider the fiscal 2024 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill during the hearing.

The coalition’s leaders warned that pay issues across the country will only worsen unless the administration proposes reforms that rationalize the federal government’s various pay systems and address pay compression.

“Through these alternate pay systems, Congress and OPM try to enhance government’s ability to compete with industry in select job categories,” Hill said. “But the problem does not only exist within discrete job categories, but across the entire General Schedule.”

Still, SEA and PMA emphasized that they do support the locality pay changes that OPM proposed earlier this month. They’re a significant improvement, the leaders said, but only address one aspect of a much broader problem.

“You can see a trend from administration to administration, year to year,” Briefel said. “They’re like, ‘Man, this pay system is crazy. Man, this thing doesn’t work. Somebody really needs to propose a better system here.’ But, you know, OPM is part of the pay agent, OMB is part of the pay agent, the secretary of Labor is part of the pay agent. Who are these folks waiting on to come up with a plan?”

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If the fiscal 2024 budget process was a baseball game, we’d still be in the early innings.

And like in baseball, where no lead is safe, what the bills look like today is far from what they will look like on Oct. 1 or Nov. 1 or even Jan. 1, whenever Congress passes, and the President signs, a final set of spending bills.

The one thing that seems certain, is lawmakers will not get the budget done by Oct. 1, leaving agencies with yet another continuing resolution and opening the door, ever so slightly, for the return of the “S” word — sequestration.

Just don’t say it more than three times, or like Beetlejuice, if you say it too often, it will appear out of the ether.

It’s been a decade since agencies faced that ugly “S” word, and 2013 was the first time since the 1980s.

If you aren’t familiar with the “S” word, then you probably were in college, high school or even the private sector back in 2013. But those of who were around and remember the “S” word, even the slight possibility of a return sends shivers down your spine.

“In 2013, agencies took a massive hatchet to their discretionary spending,” said Matthew Cornelius, a former Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs staff member. “Broadly speaking, House Republicans are making different calculations today than they did in 2013 with the Budget Control Act.”

The Budget Control Act ushered in the “S” word — OK we can say it a second time,  sequestration — and it required Obama administration leaders to cut discretionary spending by about $85 billion in 2013, which ended up being about a 7.8% cut to Defense agencies and a 5% cut to civilian agencies.

The pain of those cuts took years to rebound from, and even the possibility of it returning should force federal executives and industry leaders to stand up and take notice.

Self-imposed Jan. 1 deadline

The reason why you should even be thinking about the “S” word is if Congress doesn’t pass a 2024 spending bill by Jan. 1, the debt ceiling deal from June includes an automatic 1% across the board cut. While it may not technically be called the “S” word, the cut will be felt the same no matter.

“Lawmakers already are saying they are looking to get this done by Jan. 1,” said Mike Hettinger, president of Hettinger Strategies and a former House oversight committee staff member. “This leads me to believe they will try to do a CR sooner than later and get the final spending bill off the table to avoid the automatic cuts.”

Congressional watchers, however, say this doesn’t mean all is well in appropriations land.

Federal executives still should be keenly aware of the possibility of a cut to their program.

Hettinger said the difference between the initial versions of the House and Senate spending bill is about $100 billion. And this doesn’t even take into account what the Biden administration put forward in March.

“The biggest issues we are facing is not the House or Senate bill, but how they come to agreement when you have delta that is $80 billion to $110 billion difference?” Hettinger said. “In order to get a bill done, someone will have to blink and it’s not clear who that is. In recent memory, I don’t remember a delta that great. Usually it’s $15 billion-to-$20 billion between the two bills. This will be difficult to find a number to coalesce around.”

How to shore up your programs

And that is both the rub and concern that federal executives should be preparing for. It seems likely that cuts to programs, especially those Republicans labeled as “woke” are coming in one way, shape or form. These could include green government priorities such as electrifying the federal fleet or getting federal buildings to zero emissions.

Jeff Newman, an attorney with Thompson Coburn, said there are some programs or areas that likely are safe like national security, veterans and even things like cybersecurity and digital services.

“I don’t think agencies will see huge increases like we did in year’s past. It will be more of a reprioritizing of assets and monies to certain industries and programs and priorities that the government has both domestically and internationally,” Newman said. “Some of domestic programs you feel good about are likely in trouble, while you will see increases around things that support Ukraine’s war effort, the intelligence community and manufacturing and additive technologies to improve the supply chains of critical products.”

Over the next few months, federal executives and industry leaders should take some steps to shore up support for their programs.

Experts say first figure out how much attention Congress is giving to your program or area.

“Because of years of out-of-control spending, it has been and will continue to be my priority to pass conservative bills that focus our limited resources on the core responsibilities of the federal government, including national defense, our veterans and our border,” said House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas) in a June 12 statement.

Emily Murphy, a former House Small Business and Armed Services staff member and administrator of the General Services Administration, said while it’s too soon for federal executives to panic, they need to act quickly to understand, what, if any are the concerns lawmakers have with your program.

Murphy recommended first talking to your agency’s Congressional Affairs office as they can be helpful to address specific concerns and ensure the messaging is consistent.

She also said executives should make sure they are a part of budget briefings and be available as a resource to answer questions from the Congressional Affairs office or from the hill.

Spend your 2023 funding

At the same time, Murphy, who now is a senior fellow with the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University and consults with government contractors, said when she was a staff member on the Hill she always enjoyed hearing directly from federal employees.

“Congressional Affairs was fine, but I felt like I would get more candid answers without Congressional Affairs. At the same time, those conversations could get self serving too, especially if the employee was throwing another program under the bus,” Murphy said. “I kept a Rolodex of direct phone numbers and didn’t hesitate to reach out to program folks. Some would talk to me and others would say they have to go Congressional Affairs.”

She also cautioned against “freelancing” with Hill staff as it may cause your agency some unnecessary heartache.

Hettinger recommended working with OMB and your agency’s authorizing committees to make sure they know what your objections or concerns are about potential cuts to a program.

As for the rest of 2023, David Berteau, the president of the Professional Services Council and a former DoD assistant secretary of Defense for logistics and materiel readiness, offered these considerations.

First, program officials should spend the money they have in 2023. A CR heading into 2024 means no new starts, but agencies can continue initiatives begun previously.

Second, plant the seeds that will grow into the out years like 2025 and beyond.

“Under the debt limit deal, agencies could only see as much as a 1% increase and inflation isn’t not going to be below 1%, so you must be thinking about how 2023 is setting your stage for 2024 and 2025,” he said.

Third, be prepared for unexpected turbulence. “Many agencies are still ahead of what they received in 2023 based on what the House and Senate mark up. The real threat is to DoD if Congress doesn’t get a spending bill done by Jan. 1 because they will not get the expected 3.3% increase and will face a 1% cut, which is about $30 billion. That will have a real impact on DoD,” Berteau said.

One last signal executives should look out for is what comes out in appropriations committee markups and reports, where lawmakers offer a bit more explanations for their decisions.

Murphy called these two documents good indicators of where the bill is going.

“Comparing the House and Senate versions will help you hone in on where the controversies may be,” she said. “The other place to look is the amendments offered to the defense authorization bill, which frequently indicate where members are trying to make something happen on appropriations side.”

And if it looks like your program is going to take a significant cut, Murphy recommended start looking at your contracts, the real or expected attrition of employees and whether you need to fill the position now or not, and make sure any spending meets the Bona Fide Need rule.

The long and short of the appropriations process is while we still are in the first inning, there is no time to drink a beer and get a hot dog because the inning or two you miss, could leave your program, mission area in a different kind of “S” word storm.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Alyssa Miguel

The highest point in Pennsylvania (3,213 feet) is lower than the lowest point in Colorado (3,315 feet).

Source: USGS

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